


until it goes unnoticed

by waveridden



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Season: COUNTER/Weight, Trapped In Elevator, it's not an elevator it's a subway car but same difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-18 03:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21921193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveridden/pseuds/waveridden
Summary: Jillian and Aria, trapped in a subway car together.
Relationships: Aria Joie & Jillian Red, Jacqui Green/Aria Joie
Kudos: 7
Collections: 2019 AU December Challenge





	until it goes unnoticed

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of the AUcember series, a self-made challenge where I try to write a new AU one-shot every day. You can read all of the AUcember fics in the collection linked above. Title is from Shelter by Christinna O.

It takes Jill about five minutes to decide, fuck it, she’s going to lie down on the seats. There aren’t even arm rests or anything between the, that could stop her, so she nestles her backpack under her head and lies down on the dirty, gross-ass subway seats.

“That can’t possibly be comfortable,” Aria says dubiously.

It’s not what Jillian was expecting her to say, so she turns to give Aria a skeptical look. “More comfortable than sitting,” she says pointedly. “You heard them, they don’t know how long we’re going to be stuck down here.”

“Ugh,” Aria mumbles. She’s in the seats across the aisle from Jillian, and she looks so prim and fucking proper, wearing a pantsuit with a hot pink blouse, hair tied up in a severe bun. Jillian doesn’t hate her, exactly, but it drives her crazy knowing that they have history that she can’t remember. And now she’s trapped in a subway car with her for god knows how long. When she gets out of here, she’s making Diego take her out for drinks, and she’s gonna make sure he pays for them.

“Whatever,” Jillian sighs. “Do you have cell reception?”

“Nope. Do you?”

“Nope. I don’t think my pager works either.”

“Wouldn’t you think the subway would have WiFi these days?”

“No,” Jillian says, a little more sharply than she intends. “I specifically don’t think the government would invest in anything that would make public transit better.”

Aria makes a noise that she can’t parse. When she glances over, Aria isn’t sitting up anymore; she’s lying on her stomach across the seats, head pillowed on her arms. She’s staring straight ahead, mouthing something silent to herself.

Jill sighs and takes out her phone. If nothing else, she can put on some music or something, or at the very least look busy so Aria doesn’t talk to her.

Unfortunately, she’s still fumbling with her earbuds when Aria bursts out, “I don’t get why you hate me.”

Jill groans and drops the earbuds on her chest, still mostly tangled. “Jesus Christ, why does it matter?”

“Because you’re important to Jacqui.”

“That whole thing is…” she waves a hand in the air. “You know.”

“No, I don’t know.”

“Oh, please, you two talk about everything.”

“Not this,” Aria says, a strange note to her voice. Jill turns, more out of curiosity than sympathy, just in time to see Aria turn on her side so she’s facing the wall. “She doesn’t really talk about you.”

Jillian frowns. “At all?”

“Not really. She used to, back when it was…”

“Back when she thought I was dead?”

“Yeah.” Aria lifts a hand to fiddle with her bun, and in a clumsy motion, she pulls a pin out of place. Her hair springs from a bun into a ponytail, and to Jillian’s surprise, the ends of it are still dyed electric pink. “I think it’s easier to deal with normal grief than… whatever it is that she’s dealing with. But she’s still not telling me about this. I know you guys keep going out for coffee and going to the gym and whatever, and I don’t mind that, but it’s hard feeling like I don’t get to be in this part of her life.”

Jillian sighs. The whole situation is a fucking mess. She’d been a Jane Doe in a hospital, with only the loosest memories of herself and her old life. Car accident, they’d told her, and they’d helped her rebuild her life. And then she’d met Diego, and the rest of those bastards that he’s friends with, and now she gets to be one of those bastards too. And it was easy. It was all so easy, it was exactly what she wanted.

Then she’d met Jacqui, who she’d apparently been in love with for a long fucking time. Jacqui, who was tall and who looked at Jill like she was seeing a ghost. Jacqui, who was engaged to Aria Joie, politician and pop star and supposedly a perfect woman. And suddenly Jillian couldn’t say what she wanted, because apparently she was a whole other person for a while there. Or maybe she’s a whole other person now.

“It’s complicated,” she says slowly. “Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Aria repeats.

Jill kicks her feet up on the armrest at the end of the seats, crossing one leg over the other in the process. “I think it’s harder for her than it is for me. Like, I always knew that I used to be someone different, so all that’s really changing for me is that I get to know about that person now. But she’s grieving in a whole different way now.”

“I know,” Aria snaps. “I know, and I can see that she’s hurting, and she won’t let me help, and I-” There’s a thump, and when Jillian looks over, it almost looks like Aria kicked the armrest by her feet. “And it would be so much easier if I understood anything that was going on, but now you just fucking hate me. Every time we meet for work stuff, it just feels like you’re trying to kill me with your brain or something, and I’m kind of tired of it.”

Jill snorts. “If I wanted to kill you, I think I could do it with my hands.”

“Thanks,” Aria says flatly. “That makes me feel better.”

“You’re welcome,” Jillian says, as magnanimously as she can. “And I kind of got the impression that you hated me too.”

“No offense, but you’re kind of making my life hell.”

“I know.” She pauses, and then says all at once, “I think Jacqui and I are going to be going to that charity auction thing together.”

Aria exhales in a whoosh. “I figured.”

“You could always bring a hot date.”

“I’d rather have your date.”

“I think this is going to be the last time we go out together.” She glances over to see Aria frown in confusion, and for a strange second, she feels a pang of sympathy. “I just don’t think it’s fair to either of us to keep trying to rebuild something. If she wants to be my friend now she can be, but I don’t want things to be whatever they used to be.”

“Because of her?”

Jillian pauses. How can she explain this?

“Jacqui’s great,” she says slowly. “But she keeps… she keeps calling me J, right? Only in specific moments. Like, she’ll point out someone wearing a weird outfit on the street and say something about it and end with ‘Isn’t that right, J?’”

“It’s an old joke,” Aria says quietly. She meets Jillian’s eyes steadily. “She told me about it. She’d say that, and you would say something like, ‘You know it, J,’ and then you’d move on.”

Jillian nods. “Nobody’s ever called me J. Not that I can remember. It feels like she’s not talking to me, she’s talking to J.”

“And you’re not J.”

“As far as I know, I’ve never been J. And if Jacqui wants to be friends with  _ me, _ that’s fine, she’s great and I’d be happy to keep in touch. But I’m hoping that the charity thing is going to make her realize that I’m not the same.”

“You’re not what I expected,” Aria says suddenly. “You always sounded… so different, in the stories she told.”

“Good different?”

“No, you sounded much worse.” Aria grins in a sharp flash, and Jill is delighted despite herself. “And, you know, I like arguing with you at work.”

“I like arguing with you too,” Jillian says. “Even if you are insufferable.”

“Insufferable?” Aria repeats, mock-offended. She pushes herself up so she’s halfway sitting, mouth open for some kind of retort, when suddenly the subway lurches forward. Aria squeaks, loses her balance and tumbles onto the floor.

Jillian can’t help herself: she bursts into laughter. It takes her a second to realize that Aria is laughing along with her, on the floor of the moving subway car.

She reaches a hand down, and Aria grabs it and pulls herself up to a sitting position. “Thanks,” she says, and Jill expects her to move back to the seat, but she doesn’t. She just stays there on the floor. “You wanna see pictures of my friend’s cats? He accidentally adopted, like, seven of them a couple years ago, and he refuses to get rid of any of them.”

“Sure,” Jillian says, and for the first time, she thinks she understands Aria Joie, not the politician but the person. She’s kind of surprised by how much she likes her.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on Tumblr/Twitter @waveridden!


End file.
